Saturday, December 29, 2012

My two youngest children are not big fans of the Handwritten
Thank-You Note.When asked to write one,
my son has been known to play the environmentalist card. He objects, “How many
trees have needlessly died due to thank-you notes?” Youngest Daughter zigzags between complete
entitlement syndrome and clingy hugs of thanks, but rarely wants to spend time
expressing her thanks in writing.Oldest
Daughter is a bright light, willing to write a note cheerfully and
appropriately.

At my church’s adult ed class, just before Thanksgiving, we
had a session on gratitude.We spent
most of the hour just writing a thank you note or two. It was easy to do, when I had that hour set aside for the task, and when someone
handed me a blank notecard.But I fear I
myself have lost the discipline of the thank-you note.

At our family Christmas celebration, some of the seven
teenagers showed little sign of gratitude.I had to prompt my younger two to say thanks, as if they were
five-year-olds.After the gift-giving
exchange, my sister-in-law said to me, “Most of those kids didn’t even say
‘thank you’!” This was especially
galling since she had hand-knitted them some gorgeous items.

Lovely sock, knitted by my sister-in-law.
No need to knit the second sock, as YD
never wears matching socks.

My mother, who was not able to join us for
the festivities because of my Dad’s condition, had spent valuable time
selecting gifts for each of us.She
called later and asked how each person had received her gifts.Clearly she was heartbroken not to be there
with us.

When we got home from our travels I decided to take action.Today I told the kids, “This afternoon there
will be a mandatory writing activity for all the children.”This includes my niece, who is with us for a
visit.She is notorious for not sending
any sort of message in response to packages sent to her at college.

I cleared off the dining room table.When this happens in the Common Household, it
means something serious is happening.I located
all my blank notecards, pens, and some lined paper. Finally, I assembled the
teenagers themselves at the dining room table.On the lined paper, each of us made a list of gifts we had
received.I had the kids circle the names
of people who had not been there when we opened the gifts.Then I had them underline the names of people
who were at least 10 years old than they.Thank-you notes to both groups were required.

We spent about an hour on this activity.My husband even joined in.The six of us produced 25 hand-written
thank-you notes.If I had planned it
better, I could have put many of the notes in one envelope and saved postage,
but in the end I'm happy to spend the $11 to mail them separately.Won’t it be nice for those elderly relatives
to have a full mailbox?!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Box of wrapping paper. Every year my husband buys paper that is too big to fit in my box. Every yearI imagine that I will switch to a more environmentallysound method of wrapping gifts. So far, not yet.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

Thirty minutes of being able to command the teenager's time and attention! I received this gift on Dec 9th, but just like a department store coupon, it was not immediately valid. Now that it's after Dec 15th, I'm wondering where I put this coupon. Tomorrow might be a snow day - I might really need it.

Today probably would not have been a good time to redeem my coupon. The middle school had a bomb scare. YD came home and said cheerfully, "Today I got evacuated!"

Son replied, "Did they empty all the air out of you?"

YD said, "No, we all had to leave the school." The school staff did take the entire middle school student body to the high school. They had to spend the rest of the day in the auditorium. I thought this sounded horrible - I was imagining a noisy, unruly crowd of kids, full of eye-rolling and sarcasm, to add to everyone's anxiety. But YD said the kids all had to stay silent the entire time. An auditorium full of teenagers forced to be silent for 2 hours - that also sounds difficult.

Her 8th grade English class is studying the Holocaust. She's studied this topic before, at Hebrew school, but somehow there are never adequate answers for her constant 'why' about this topic.

She doesn't know that the greatest gift she gave me today was her arrival home from school safe and sound, and her concern for the human race.

Monday, December 17, 2012

“This will be our
reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more
devotedly than ever before.”

—Leonard Bernstein on the
assassination of John F. Kennedy, Jr.

To see eloquent responses to the sad event in Connecticut,
please visit The Blogs I Commonly Read, over there on the right.There
is also this:Grieving Together.These writers all have fine and true words, and I really
can’t add anything more to them.

My reaction is to avoid obsessive and pointless checking of
the news.Instead, the Common Household
plunges itself in music.

Oldest Daughter came home from college yesterday, and my
daughters and I spent part of the evening singing our heads off, going through
loads of Christmas hymns and carols to sing when we visit the Old Folks Home
next week.I take solace from the hymns
based on Bach chorales: O Morning Star, how fair and bright.Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light.And the Advent chorale Wachet Auf, which does not mean “Whack it Off” but rather “Wake,
awake for night is flying.” Lots of light in these hymns.

Then Youngest Daughter and I joined the church youth group
for a caroling stint at a local nursing home.The highlight for YD seemed to be the cookies at the end.

YD likes this new Advent hymn that we introduced at my church
‘carol sing’ a few weeks ago.

Darkness hangs, the
world is aching, Yearning for the coming light.

My son is learning a new piano piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos –
O Polichinelo, which must mean “hands
are moving really fast.”

Oldest Daughter also brought home some a cappella pieces sung by the Wailin’ Jennys, for instance, Parting Glass…

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

At this season, when we are told “It’s the most wonderful time
of the year,” some people are less than cheery.There are several conditions which make people feel sad, and I’ve got
one of them.I’ve determined that I
suffer from Latke Envy.

On Saturday the Common Household Husband and I went to a
Hanukkah party for adults.We were anxious
about what to bring, and decided against a bottle of wine, as our taste leans
toward the kool-aid types, and the party hosts would not only have a more
refined taste, but also probably have their own wine cellar.I decided to bring cookies.The other 65 guests brought wine, so my
intuition was correct on that.

At the party I noticed that the latkes were beautiful
perfect circles, and a lovely golden-brown.Did I mention that this party was catered?

On Sunday, back in our So Very Common Household, I spent an
hour and a half making latkes. This is a laborious process, even with the use
of the Jewish cook’s favorite cooking tool, the food processor.I found that some of my potatoes were
inedible, with black spots in the middle (Pittsburgh potato famine?!).After an hour of simultaneous two-frying-pan
cooking, I only had 24 small, thin, irregularly-shaped latkes to show for my
effort.Oy vey! My son alone could eat
24 latkes at one meal.

As we were sitting down to dinner, Youngest Daughter said in
a cheerful voice, "Mommy!I forgot
to tell you!You and Shane's Mom can make
latkes for my English class.We're
reading The Diary of Anne Frank and
we're at the part where it's Hanukkah!"She revealed that there was a class discussion as to whose Mom, among
the two Jewish students in her class, makes the best latkes.

My first response was to look plaintively at my
husband.I said, “I have been
volunteered.”

But then I noticed that YD didn’t say, “you must make latkes” but rather, “you can…”Word choice matters!I was
emboldened.

"No, I can NOT make latkes for your English
class.”I surrendered that honor to
Shane's Mom.She wins.

We lit the candles, said the blessings, and started our
meal.The family expressed their
disappointment at the number of latkes.My
Latke Envy surged.

I said to my husband, “Did you notice that the latkes at
that party last night were perfectly round?How do they DO that?”

He said, “Well.They
use the Ronco Latke-matic.”

Ah.As seen on TV!
Makes perfectly round latkes every time!Call now, and you can also get the gefilte fish mold for just
$9.95!Makes a wonderful gift for the
goyim who suffer from latke envy!While
supplies last.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

We got a great card from my sister-in-law today.(Warning!Punnery ahead!) On the outside it says “Seasons Eatings!” and has a
picture of a bird on top of a can of Bartlett pears.Inside, it says, ‘Two turtle doves… and a
partridge on a pear can.” My husband looked at the front of the card again, and
said, “There’s a partridge sitting on a pan of cares.”(That’s what the Capitol Steps call ‘whipping
your flurds’.)

For the past few days, I’ve felt like I am carrying around a
pan of cares. I am glum just because there’s too much to do, too many
expectations to meet, too many papers to look at.When I try to tackle one thing on my list I
get distracted by something else on my list, and I go off track.

My husband has more reason to be glum, because he has had
disappointing news about his grant application and his leg still hurts
(although Doc has said he can stop using the crutches!Yay!).Someone told him that his leg will probably hurt for a year.To his great credit, he is not one to mope
around.I’ve got the moping covered for
him.

At the end of dinner, we had this conversation.

Husband: Today
was the last day of my journal class.

(This is a class he
teaches to the grad students. It consists of reading and learning from
scientific journal articles.)

Tuesday, December 4, 2012

I was gone on my business trip for 2.5 days. I’ve been back for a week now, but I’m still having
a hard time getting back to any routine.

My husband related that while I was gone, Youngest Daughter
actually missed me, for certain reasons.By dinner on Wednesday, she was asking, “When is Mommy coming back?I want some salad.”

Ha!Victory in the battle to bring fiber to the next generation!

My husband said, “Why do you want salad?”

YD:“I want to eat
something crunchy.”

Husband:“What do you
think the Doritos are for?Put some of
those in your sandwich.”

* * * * *

Here are some of the inexplicable things I discovered
around the house, the day after my return.

Lettuce that got left out all night. It COULD have been salad,
but it became inedible. I don't like to clean up, but it seems I
have a talent for putting the food away. None of my children
seem to have inherited that talent.

The neighbor's mail that we were collecting while they
were away. It was supposed to be returned to them the day I left,
not the day after I returned. Oh, well.

A stack of Youngest Daughter's math papers,
under the dining room table.

About Me

My name is Carolyn. I am a non-scientist living among scientists, and a Christian in an interfaith household. Dinner-time can get interesting sometimes.
To contact me, e-mail me at
leafmonster2000 -at- gmail -dot- com